02653cam a22002777 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002000070245012800090260006600218490004200284500001500326520134400341530006101685538007201746538003601818690009901854690018501953700002002138700002302158710004202181830007702223856003802300856003702338w18120NBER20180319223625.0180319s2012 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aPinkowitz, Lee.10aMultinationals and the High Cash Holdings Puzzleh[electronic resource] /cLee Pinkowitz, René M. Stulz, Rohan Williamson. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2012.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w18120 aJune 2012.3 aDefining as normal cash holdings the holdings a firm with the same characteristics would have had in the late 1990s, we find that the abnormal cash holdings of U.S. firms after the crisis represent on average 1.86% of assets. While U.S. firms held less cash than comparable foreign firms in the late 1990s, by 2010 they hold more. However, only U.S. multinational firms experience an increase in abnormal cash holdings during the 2000s. U.S. multinational firms had cash holdings similar to those of purely domestic firms in the late 1990s, but they hold over 3% more assets in cash than comparable purely domestic firms after the crisis. Further, U.S. multinationals increased their cash holdings since the late 1990s relative to foreign multinationals by roughly the same percentage as they increased their cash holdings relative to U.S. domestic firms. A detailed analysis shows that the increase in cash holdings of multinational firms cannot be explained by the tax treatment of profit repatriations, that it is intrinsically linked to their R&D intensity, and that firms that become multinational do not increase their abnormal cash holdings after they become multinational. There is no evidence that poor investment opportunities, regulation, or poor governance can explain the abnormal cash holdings of U.S. firms after the crisis. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aF23 - Multinational Firms • International Business2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aG32 - Financing Policy • Financial Risk and Risk Management • Capital and Ownership Structure • Value of Firms • Goodwill2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aStulz, René M.1 aWilliamson, Rohan.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w18120.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1812041uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w18120